The snow was falling at a lazy pace, and as Sadie McLure shouted up the stairs to tell her older brother to get dressed for, oh, about the tenth time this morning, she sent a text to one of her friends. Stone wasn't going to be ready anytime soon, so she decided to cook herself some breakfast. Her dad was sitting in one of the kitchen chairs reading a book, but she was getting good at knowing when he wasn't here, as in this actual reality. He hadn't turned the page in the past two minutes, and he seemed…distant. He was only a few feet away from her, but he might as well been a million miles away.
Dad was in the nano.
He was inside her brain. Weaving a protective layer around his daughter's aneurism, performing surgery where no scalpel could ever reach. Which was technically impossible. Hell, it was impossible. But as Sadie had learned over the years, her father was capable of impossible things.
"How bad is it?" She asked, pulling the carton of eggs out of the fridge.
"Just replacing the Teflon." Dad said.
"Cool," she said, because what else were you supposed to say when your dad shattered all ethical codes to keep you from dying? He didn't like when she made a big deal out of it. He was just doing what he could, he'd say. "You want anything to eat?"
"Yeah. Usual." He said, and the 'usual' was whatever Sadie felt like making. She decided on simple scrambled eggs because she was still a little tired, she and Stone had been up all night trying to think of an idea, one single idea, as to what to get their father for the impending Christmas. Stone suggested a new microscope, but then remembered they got that for him last year.
The thing about Grey McLure, besides being a billionaire of the better sort, was that he was impossible to shop for. Regular kids got their fathers lame ties or books or…regular dad stuff. If Dad wanted something, he usually bought it himself, or, in the case of biots, conjured the concept out of thin air and made it a reality.
Sadie and Stone never used to have this problem. Well, they did, but another thing about Grey McLure was that he married a woman who seemed to know what he needed before he did, so Mom always gave them ideas that surprised Dad, and this was the first Christmas without Mom, and no one in the McLure family was looking forward to it, but it would come anyway. It's going to be a shitty Christmas anyway, Stone said last night. Why act like it won't be?
Some security guy, Stern, was taking them to the mall today, and dammit, they were going to get Dad something for Christmas. She just wanted things to go back to normal.
"I know you want to ask me something," Grey said, making the effort of eye contact while seeing God knew what inside her brain. He even smirked, and for a terrifying moment she wondered if Dad knew what she was thinking not because he always did, but because of the biots.
No. Dad wouldn't do that. Besides, there wasn't much interesting stuff going on inside Sadie's brain at the moment. A sleep-deprived mind couldn't be that interesting in the nano.
"I know you're answer is going to be classic Grey McLure. I don't need anything," she mimicked her Dad's voice. He laughed, the first genuine laugh she heard from him in the months since Mom died, and she smiled in response.
She grabbed a plate and filled it with the eggs. They were a little burnt, but Sadie knew he wouldn't mind. She slid the plate across the table and then served herself.
"Maybe I do want something," Grey said.
"Seriously?" Sadie asked.
He still had that smirk on his face when he said, "Yeah. I think I need a new tie."
"Ugh!" She shouted. "Stop with the joking, Dad. What do you actually, honestly want for Christmas?"
"Neon, definitely. Pink. Or orange. A neon orange tie." Dad smiled as he closed his book and ate breakfast.
"You're impossible." She accused, stabbing a piece of egg on the plate.
"Or maybe stripes. You're a kid. Are stripes 'hip' anymore?" He added air-quotes with the word hip.
"No. They're not too groovy these days," she rolled her eyes. Two could play this game, she thought.
"Are you calling me old?" He asked, a look of mock surprise on his face.
She countered with, "Did you call me a kid?"
"You are fourteen years old. From a youth marketing prospective, you're a kid." He deadpanned.
"Fourteen and a half, Dad." She corrected, matching his smirk.
Just then, a thumping noise sounded upstairs. She and Grey both glanced up to see Stone jumping into his jeans. He hadn't even dressed himself yet. One arm had made it to a sleeve, but Sadie doubted it was the right sleeve. He would take a few steps on the spiral staircase then try his luck at buttoning his jeans or fixing his shirt. This was a process that took Stone a couple of minutes to complete, and when he finally made it to the kitchen, he had the nerve to say, "I thought you were ready?"
"Excuse me?" She said, gaping at him. His shirt was still backwards, and he desperately needed a belt. "I didn't just get dressed in the dark, dimwit. What were you even doing for the past half hour?"
"Stuff." Stone answered. Sadie raised her eyebrows and nearly launched one of her famous verbal assaults. "Back me up, Dad." Stone said, smiling that goofy, signature Stone smile. It was a forced smile these days, Sadie saw past it, Grey saw past it, and Stone had to know it was bullshit, but he was bullshitting his goofy smile for them, so he expected some backup in return.
"Oh. You're busy, right?" Stone asked. He never liked to talk about nanotechnology. He didn't like to use the phrases like biots or microns or any of that. Sadie also noticed Stone washing his hands more often, and taking more than a shower once a week. Sometimes Sadie wondered if she handled this all too easily. The nanoworld, as she had taken to calling it. Dad showed her scans every now and then, and she couldn't help it. The scans failed to gross her out. She thought it was kind of cool. Sadie had seen many brain scans in her life, and each time fascinated her more than the last.
So, when someone can see and have whatever they want, what are you supposed to get them for Christmas? Sadie needed to know the answer to that question.
"Your shirt is on backwards," Dad said. Her brother groaned, retracting his arms and twisting his shirt around.
Sadie saw the black car pull up before the doorbell rang. She grabbed her purse and grabbed Stone's arm. He said, "Hey, I'm hungry," and she said, "Eat at the food court," but Stone insisted on grabbing an entire box of protein bars before leaving. Dad reminded them he was picking up their grandmother from the airport later today,
Sadie had met Stern once or twice, but Dad seemed to have the head of security around more often. They didn't talk much—at all, really. They had no reason to. As far as security guys go, he was okay. She remembered Dad and Stern sharing a drink one time, a twenty-year-old scotch. Buchanan's. That was the brand. Buchanan's. Stern brought a bottle over a couple of years ago and he and her parents ended up draining a majority of it. They'd laughed and whatever had been bothering them didn't seem as important anymore.
Were they friends? Could Stern help her come up with a half decent idea?
"Shotgun!" Stone shouted, sprinting towards the car. Sadie just sighed, why would she want to sit in the front? Stone always made every attempt to read over her shoulder—whether it was books or text messages—and if she had the back to herself, then she got some privacy.
Stern pulled out of the driveway. Stone started munching on protein bars.
"Aren't you supposed to work out before eating those?" She said. Stone's response was unintelligible because of the food in his mouth, but if Sadie had to bet, it was not anything worth hearing. Stone messed with the radio, settling on neutral ground with his choice of music. Not quite a white flag, but close.
The car ride to the mall was silent from then on. Nearly full with late holiday shoppers, the parking lot only had a couple of spots left. Soon they were out of the car, on their way into the mall, snow gathering on their shoulders. They hadn't even reached the mall doors yet when it happened. Stone had the tendency to walk ahead of people, and Sadie guessed it was for this very purpose, but she never said anything.
"The record is fifteen," she informed Stern.
"What rec—" Stern asked as the start of the possible new record introduced herself as Caitlyn, with a C, she insisted, and Sadie had a couple of choice words starting with that letter for the woman who had to be at least five years older than Stone. Sadie didn't know what to expect from Stern, whose common expression matched his name. He was a security guy, after all. How long would he let this go on without interfering? Sadie guessed it depended on how touchy Caitlyn felt today.
Stern, however, was laughing.
"Oh God," she said. "Please tell me my father wasn't like that, too."
Stern shook his head in amusement. "No, no. He was the opposite, really. He couldn't tell if a girl was flirting with him unless she outright told him."
"When did you meet him?"
"College."
"So you know him very well?"
"You could say that," Stern said, keeping an eye on Stone.
She hoped they were close friends, not only for the purpose of finding Dad a gift, but also because Dad was always stressed, and the more she talked to Stern, he seemed like a good friend for Dad. "What'd you get him this year?"
"A nice Barolo."
"Maybe I can get him a bottle of Jack Daniels," she thought aloud. Stern objected, saying she couldn't buy it herself, and he wasn't about to let Grey's fourteen year old daughter buy him whiskey for the holidays. Stern ended up having to break up Caitlyn with a C and Stone up. The shortly lived make-out session, which Stone was very happy about, proved to be Stern's red line. Caitlyn slipped a piece of paper into Stone's back pocket, a move neither Stern or Sadie missed, and ran after her friends.
"I like this mall," Stone said.
"Yeah. I'm sure you do." Sadie scoffed.
They entered the mall, finally, and began their last minute search for gifts.